I've read articles that entrants into “education” colleges are in the lowest 25% percentile - so the kids are being taught by the lowest intelligent grads.
If I were czar, I would require **all** teachers to take and pass Calculus I for engineers and science majors. They would sit in the same classes, shoulder to shoulder, with the geeks.
Do teachers need Calculus to teach? No, of course not, but it would assure that they had a high enough IQ to be entrusted with a classroom of children. It would help prevent having math phobics teaching classes and passing their bias on to their students. And...Maybe having taken and passed Calculus the teachers would reject the nutty methods that are being used today to teach math.
Also...I would require all teachers to take and pass, once every three years, the GED for high school drop outs. If they can’t pass the GED then they shouldn’t be anywhere near kids as a teacher.
It is my guess that large numbers of government teachers would fail the GED, even if given a month or two to prepare. They would likely fail the math portion.